


Nomen

by YaminoTenshi202



Series: Nobility [2]
Category: The Lorax (2012), The Lorax - Dr. Seuss
Genre: Childhood, Fatherhood, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:45:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2695199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YaminoTenshi202/pseuds/YaminoTenshi202
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Audrey asked about her name, it was always returned with "It's from your father."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nomen

_Conception_

They were pressing against each other carnally, one inside of the other and sparking heat between the two of them. How they were fitting together, there was no explanation. There was only the heat that grew stronger and more threatening the longer they rocked against each other. As the heat grew, the more they wished to drown in it. Mouths were being pressed to shoulders, tongues lapped over bare skin, and teeth were making brands that signified ownership and an understanding that they couldn't express in words.

One of them was letting out foul language that the one beneath him wasn't bothering to interpret, so long as he kept hitting the spot there that was making stars visible through the ceiling. Yes, there were stars and universes being born out of this tryst, a wonderful feeling that was being overshadowed by the smog that was making it harder and harder to keep breath while moving.

_-_

_Prepartum_

A stomach was swelling, though it was not noticeable. A question was asked, concerning the swelling. One voice gave a helpfulness, one that was appreciated. The swelling was never a topic of discussion, given the impossibility that would occur between the two of them. Nothing could come to fruition. Nothing could come from the both of them and survive, surely.

However, the smog outside was too much, and so were the glup and schlop; and soon, the trees that had been loved so dearly and gave birth to the sweet fruits that he remembered tasting when he arrived to the Valley, they were dying.

-

_Quickening_

A name was said. He kept it close.

_-_

_Birth_

The infant in the bassinet is crying for something that her father doesn't understand. He doesn't understand because he does not have the engrossment that's supposed to come after a mother's bonding. He does not have the mother bonding now because he's alone.

He knows nothing over the care of his daughter, only that he is alone with a child that shouldn't have been conceived. In the home he stayed at, there had been one that he _could_ love, not one that he _should have_. When he had been well again and had left, he had been sent a reminder of his life and love. This child here...

He recalls that her mother, from what he remembered in that house, would cook, but lacking teeth meant that the child couldn't eat like they all did. He tried to remember other things, anything that could supplement his endeavors so he did not wander aimlessly through the care for his daughter. He recalled seeing the Bar-ba-loots - oh, the dear Bar-ba-loots who might have passed from the crummies in their tummies - suckle their young.

"Of course," he muttered, feeling incompetent for not realizing what was so obvious. The females always suckled their young, while the males provided protection and comfort to them. He realized this and gathered what he needed, walking over to the bassinet and finally taking in the sight of his daughter, who lay coated in a substance that he had decided to rub into her skin on a spur of the moment, once the child had been handed to him.

"Let's go, little one."

And as he ventured into the new life that they would lead together - because there would never be a love for him except any that she had for him and despite the complexity of this, he was starting to feel an attachment to this wriggling thing wrapped in pink - he smiled down at her and let a smile grow on his face, his mustache slightly itching his nose at the feeling.

"Audrey."

_-_

_Year One_

Audrey grew well and was enamored with the world despite her smallness. At a year old, she knew she was a child of the flowers, flowers that should have been blooming around them. Her father's gloves handled the ground and his lips whispered to the ground. His mouth pressed kisses to her cheeks and pet her bright hair. His fingers braided plaits into her hair, and his tongue whispered blessing and "I love you" when she would close her eyes to fall asleep.

He would tell her stories of a place where flowers smelled of sweetness, foulness, or nothing. In that place, he'd fallen in love and created a beautiful thing: "my Audrey."

He told her of the Bar-ba-loots that played and would have played with her if she had been around to see them, especially a "Pipsqueak."

But he never told her an answer when she learned a new word when they went to the place with many people. She saw someone small like she was, and she repeated the word.

He never answered her back when she said that word.

- 

_Year Two_

"Where Daddy?"

Audrey toddled through their home, looking for her father. The house was cold, but the floor was warm, just like how she liked it. She could lay on her tummy when she played with her water paints, special color her father made for her from the ground that was many colors, and she wouldn't get cold. There were many things that she still didn't understand, but she understood that sometimes Daddy went away, but he was gone too long this time.

"Daddy?"

"Audrey?" She turned and toddled quickly to her Daddy's voice, wanting to see him. He was holding out his arms to her, and he spun her around once, pressing kisses to her hair. She gave him a kiss back on his cheek, where his mustache was short and didn't itch her face so much. They stayed holding each other for a few moments, until there was a tightness to his hug that left her feeling squished.

"Daddy! Tight!"

He started to say things that she didn't understand, not really. All Audrey understood was that Daddy was sad, and he was saying the word that she had heard before.

"-- -- sorry you don't have - ------. - -- ---- Mama --- I ---- replace ---..."

She started crying, too, because she couldn't understand him.

-

_Year Two-and-a-Half_

She said "Bye" to her Daddy.

They both cried.

-

_Year Three_

Audrey lived in a different place. There wasn't any dirt nor were there any dirty places where she could play and then take a nice bath later. All the people that could care of her said was that she should be a good girl and stay clean. She didn't like it.

She did like books, though. The strange things that her Daddy had told her about were on pages. Pictures were there, too, like the pictures that Daddy made in the ground with the different colors. They didn't move like how her Daddy made them move though.

"Mama" and "Papa" were nice, and they told her that they loved her all the time. It didn't make her forget her Daddy, though, and she was always waiting for the day that he would come back.

One day, when they said that it was her birthday, that her Daddy had told them about, she asked where her Daddy had gone.

"He's gone away."

"When will he come back?"

"Mama" and "Papa" didn't answer. They went back to her cake that was too sweet, but the milk they gave her made the taste not so bad. There were "kids" at the party, but they didn't want to go outside at all. It was okay; Audrey didn't like the air outside, but the sun came in through the window and that made her happy.

Under a sky that held a strange lights but no stars, as she was asleep, Audrey felt a strange wind as her window was opened. As she rubbed her eyes awake, she felt a finger against her lips and looked up to a person foreign and familiar.

"Hello."

"Hello, there. What's your name?"

"My name's Audrey."

"Well, Audrey..." The person seemed soft and nice, and for some reason, crying seemed like a good thing right now, even if it left Audrey just reaching up to wipe the tears away. "I came to wish you a Happy, Splendorious Birthday, princess." He held out something in his dirty, gruvvulous glove, and it shone in the moonlight. It ticked away in Audrey's hands, and when she opened it, it played a strange melody.

It reminded her of her Daddy.

Every day for that month, the man came and told her stories, of some distant time when trees were everywhere.

-

Year Four

She asked for paints at some point, a few months before her fourth birthday. She painted her Daddy and her Pappy - the man that came in through the window - and the flowers that she could remember from her Daddy's stories or her Pappy's stories. 

She remembered the Bar-ba-loots, the Humming Fish, and Swomee Swans. She remembered the smell of Daddy's hands when they came out of the dry earth from trying to plant, and she remembered Pappy's smile that always made her have a weird feeling in her heart, like something was squeezing it.

She painted her room with all of these things.

On the day after Pappy's last visit of the month, she came home to see that they were painted over.

**Author's Note:**

> Prepartum - Before birth  
> Quickening - The mother's first sensation of fetal movement


End file.
